parties punished anybody that seeks any sort of common ground. we re seeing it in response to the judicial branch where there is say growing cancer on the supreme court and a body that pride itself on judicial independence is perceive as another branch of government in the polarized nation. in the eyes of the american the justice robes are not black anymore. they re red and blue. one in four americans said they had a great deal in the confidence of the supreme court, according to gallup, the lowest rating in 50 years, and that was after the leak of the draft of dobbs opinion on abortion and before what we re dealing with right now which is a slew of ethics issues involving justices. what started with a story of justice thomas and a billionaire donor, has had questions for great nephew being paid for, paying for thomas mother s home and paying hundreds of thousands of dollars to a nonprofit and paying money to his wife ginni and paying ginni thomas under
believer. went with her mother to the conventions. her mom was a follower and one of the leaders of the movement, and ginni was right in there the whole way. binary view of the world, not different than clarence s, by t time they met, was very much moing away from the black world, the black support, his home in the black world, to white people. there was ginni also moving away from liberalism, from feminism and all of that. they get together at a convention against anti-affirmative action in new york. they share a cab, and the rest becomes sort of history. it s fascinating because clarence had been in a real trough before meeting ginni. no nurturing, nobody close, not a really close friend. he d been drinking too much.
gets worse and worse by the day. chief justice roberts has the power in his hands to change this first thing tomorrow morning. he could announce a code of conduct for the court and finally mean something. he could announce that the court will be subject to at least the minimal standards that apply to all other federal judges. that was senator dick durbin. of course the chairman of the senate judiciary committee. on the endless whirlwind of revelations and ethics concerns surrounding the u.s. supreme court. durbin also said over the weekend that, quote, nothing is off the table when it comes to dealing with the latest on justice clarence thomas, including outrageous gifts from a gop mega donor and reporting about his wife s financial relationship with a conservative judicial activist who asked for paperwork to have, quote, no mention of ginni of course, end quote. durbin s call for chief justice roberts to finally be embarrassed enough to act comes as maureen dowd writes in the new y
hundreds of thousands of dollars, of school tuition and homes being paid for, you take a look at what shaped these two people, politically, and how it might have come to this point. can you tell us what you found? well, it s a thanks for having me here. it s an amazing tale. we started out just to try to figure out why people were calling it the thomas court and not the roberts court or the alito court. once we dove in there, into that conservative world and how thomas is who thomas is, we started it meant we had to get back into his life and go all the way up to now. it s a fascinating story, almost like our film says it is almost novelistic he becomes who he becomes and the way he does it. especially the part where he meets up with ginni. you discover all the things you didn t know about her, which is also tremendously interesting
his marriage had fallen apart. ginni comes in and gives him the feel of home, whatever that is, and also becomes his primary adviser. at a moment, he s not reading national news, not paying attention to anything, and ginni is his eyes and ears on the world. ginni and rush limbaugh, who becomes a great friend of his. oh, my gosh. between the two of them, that s how his world view gets established. to get back to the reverend s point, if your advisers, your top advisers are ginni thomas and rush limbaugh, that explains an awful lot about how he ends up who he ends up being. sure does. clarence and ginni thomas, politics, power and the supreme court, it premieres tomorrow night on pbs. producer and director michael kirk, thank you very much for